One Bite at a Time

Thursday, May 26, 2016

Twenty Questions With David Swinson

David Swinson
did all the usual stuff before he became a cop: attended Cal State as a film
major; booked and promoted punk rock and alternative music in Long Beach CA: started
a Wednesday night evening of conversation and spoken word at Bogart’s with luminaries
such as Hunter S. Thompson, Dr. Timothy Leary, John Waters and Jim Carroll; developed
and co-produced the spoken-word compilation Sound
Bites from the Counter Culture for Atlantic Records; and, with Timothy
Leary and friend Bill Stankey, conceived the film Roadside Prophets.

Then he spent sixteen years as a DC cop where, after working
his way up the ranks to Detective, he received numerous awards including the
department’s prestigious Detective of the Year Award for 2003; Meritorious
Service Medals for significant, outstanding and sustained achievements;
Achievement Medals of Honor for a significant case investigation and several
Department of Justice, United States Attorney’s Annual Law Enforcement Awards
for significant case investigations.

And then he turned to writing, so fuck him.
Leave some juice for the rest of us, okay?

I might have
left it there had I not met him at Bouchercon and scored a copy of his new
book, The
Second Girl. In addition to being as unassuming a person as one is
likely to meet, he’s written a book that was as good as anything I read last
year, or so far in 2016. (I’ll have more on The
Second Girl next time.)

As you’d
expect, what he has to say is worth listening to, so here you go.

One Bite at a Time: Tell us about The Second Girl.

David Swinson: It’s about, Frank Marr, an ex-cop who
was forced into early retirement because of a drug addiction. The department
had to keep the addiction quiet because defense attorneys would have a field
day if they found out. Marr worked some big cases as a narcotics detective. Now
he works as a PI, but that is still not enough to feed his habit so he targets
the homes of drug dealers for their stash. During the course of one of these
burglaries he runs into something he can’t walk away from, and that is what
propels the story.

It is also a
book that freed me as a writer because I would always get so bogged down with
proper procedure as well as putting a bit too much of me into the characters.
Marr is nothing like me, and even though he does have a bit of a code, he is
not bound by having to follow certain procedure.

OBAAT: Where did you get this idea, and what made it worth
developing for you? (Notice I didn’t ask “Where do you get your ideas?” I was
careful to ask where you got this
idea.)

DS: Right after I retired in 2011, and while still trying to
get A
Detailed Manpublished. I had a basic Frank Marr
character in my head, but he was an actual burglar, not an ex-cop. He stayed
with me for a while, and the more he developed the more I thought it would be
stronger if he was an actual retired cop who committed burglaries, but only
burglaries that he could justify in his head as necessity (for his habit) and
because they were bad people. The story developed after the character.

OBAAT: How long did it take to write The Second Girl, start to finish?

DS: I like to work things out in my head, and then on paper
for a while. That took almost one year for The
Second Girl. After that I wrote it fairly quick, about nine months.

OBAAT: Where did Frank Marr come from? In what ways is he like,
and unlike, you?

DS: Like I said, Frank Marr came into my head several years
ago, but undeveloped. I loved the idea of an unrepentant, non-complaining good
bad man or bad good man. I am a man of procedure, and rules. Everything is
either right or wrong for me. Marr is nothing like that. He allowed me to break
free from all that, and run a bit wild.

OBAAT: You were a D.C. cop and worked in the part of town where
much of the book takes place. How much of what you did and saw there is in the
book?

DS: There are no actual cases that I worked that are in the
book. The crimes that occur at certain locations are based on the times I worked:
90s through 2010. I did try to stay true to the neighborhoods as they are
today. The crime is not as rampant in most of the neighborhoods anymore, but
the drugs are still there. Much of what I experienced as a detective, through
debriefing defendants, interviewing witnesses, and interrogating suspects is
what brought this to life. It is an accumulation of years of that kind of
stuff, not based on anyone in particular or like I said, any case or event.

OBAAT: Frank Marr is as clearly delineated an antihero as I can
remember. His heart is in the right place despite his best efforts to deny it.
His life is in an inherently unstable state that has to either get better or
worse. Are we going to see more of him?

DS: I’m working my way through book two now. We’ll see how the
first book is received. Hopefully well enough that there will be a third book.
I’d like to see how far I can take him.

OBAAT: How did The Second
Girl come to be published?

DS: Cool story, actually. I finished the book a couple of
weeks before Bouchercon 2015, in Long Beach. My incredible agent, Jane Gelfman,
sent it to Josh Kendall, the editorial director at Mulholland Books. When I got
to Bouchercon, Jane called me and told me that Josh Kendall was also there, and
to feel free to introduce yourself to him if you see him. He found me first.
After a panel I participated in. He introduced himself, and I said, “I know who
you are.” In a friendly way, though, but I’m sure it came across like, ‘I’ve
been stalking you.’ Well, he wasn’t scared away, and we chatted for a bit. He
said he’s only halfway through The Second
Girl, but really liking it. Apparently, both Chris Holm and Matthew Quirk,
who are also on Mulholland, were talking me up to him. Chris and Matthew had
not even read the book yet, but they know my background and love for music so
they thought Josh and I would get along. We got together for drinks later that
night at an Irish pub, and talked for about three hours over good scotch. I
didn’t even talk about my book. We talked about our daughters, relationships,
but mostly music. He kept telling me that Mulholland was like a big family, and
all I could think is “Man, I want to be a part of that family.” I may have even
told him that. Actually, I think I did. A few days later, when I was back home,
Jane called and told me the Josh made an offer. She knew it would be a great
home for me as an author so they worked out the deal. When it was done, I had a
nice phone conversation with Josh, and he admitted that he was worried after we
met because he had not finished the book yet, and he might have to reject it if
it doesn’t follow through. Fortunately, it did. I’ve accomplished a few things
in my life, but nothing has ever worked out as naturally as this did.

OBAAT: What kinds of stories do you like to read? Who are your
favorite authors, in or out of that area?

DS: I go through phases, but I love character driven fiction,
like Tana French, and Marilynn Anderson, and enlightening non-fiction, like
Scott Stossel’s, My Age of Anxiety: Fear,
Hope, Dread, and the Search for Peace of Mind. When it’s something I want
to read more than once, then it is something meaningful. Those are the books
that find a comfortable place on my bookshelf so I can pick them up again when
I need inspiration or just want to smell the pages.

OBAAT: What made you decide to be an author?

DS: It wasn’t something I decided to do. It is something I
always thought I was or rather, would be. I always loved to write. I wrote my
first book when I was seventeen, and my first devastating rejection came a few
months after. I continued, though, and always had hope that I would be a
published writer one day.

OBAAT: What do you like best about being a writer?

DS: When you surprise
yourself, but mostly when the book is done.

OBAAT: Who are your greatest influences? (Not necessarily
writers. Filmmakers, other artists, whoever you think has had a major impact on
your writing.)

DS: There are so many artists who have had a great influence
on my life. I’ve always been a fan of Nick Cave, and also the movies he wrote
screenplays for, and composed the music for – The Proposition and Lawless.
As far as a book, I would have to say Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird was my greatest influence. I also spent a few
years in Stockholm, Sweden in my teens, and got into Maj Sjowall and Per
Wahloo. They are the mother/father of all police procedure. What I like most
about their books is not only that it encompasses a ten-year span in the life
of one detective, but it also captures all that is going on politically and
socially in Stockholm at the time. Stockholm is just as much a character as
Beck. I can’t go without mentioning Dickens because I grew up reading him. His
character are so real and wonderful, and a lot of what he wrote is based on his
life experiences.

OBAAT: Do you outline or fly by the seat of you pants? Do you
even wear pants when you write?

DS: I never outline, but I take a lot of notes. The pages for
the notes are probably longer than the book. Everything is mapped out in my
head before I start, but as you well know, things always change when it takes
on a life of its own. Pants are important. It keeps my ass from sticking to my leather
chair.

OBAAT: Give us an idea of your process. Do you edit as you go?
Throw anything into a first draft knowing the hard work is in the revisions?
Something in between?

DS: I will sometimes get myself caught up with continuous
editing, returning to the beginning every day. I have to force myself not to do
that most of the time, but even then I go back over the last few pages I wrote,
and hopefully move forward. It is a tougher process, but usually pays off
because the first draft is cleaner.

OBAAT: You have a background in the music business. Do you listen
to music when you write? Do you have a theme song for this book? What music did
you go back to over and over as you wrote it, or as you write, in general?

DS: I never listen to music when I’m actually writing. I’ll
usually listen to music at night when I’m thinking about the book or taking
notes. I like to make playlists for the books. Music is important to me.
Certain songs can really inspire me. I need a lot of inspiration because the
process can be difficult for me. I have a couple of theme songs for The Second Girl; “To Lose Someone” by
Taken by Trees, and “Fear is a Man’s Best Friend,” by John Cale.

OBAAT: You’ve had a career progression that sounds like a
fictional character’s: concert promoter, cop, author. How’d that happen?

DS: Like I said, I’ve always considered myself a writer first.
I just fell into other things along the way, mostly by accident. It’s as if one
thing segued into another. A natural progression. Except for the decision to
become a cop, and eventually a detective. That was a clear choice that I made
after I gave all the other pursuits up.

OBAAT: If you could give a novice writer a single piece of
advice, what would it be?

DS: Don’t quit. Also, once you realize how difficult it is
you’ll cripple yourself so slap that thinking right out of your head.

OBAAT: Generally speaking the components of a novel are
story/plot, character, setting, narrative, and tone. How would you rank these
in order of their importance in your own writing, and can you add a few
sentences to tell us more about how you approach each and why you rank them as
you do?

DS: I always come up with a character, and setting first. The
character sets the tone. I develop the
story when I feel good about the character, but it rarely turns out the way
it’s supposed. Usually, that’s good. Frank Marr propels the story in The Second Girl. Without him, the story
means nothing.

OBAAT: If you could have written any book of the past hundred
years, what would it be, and what is it about that book you admire most?

DS: Without a doubt it would be To Kill a Mockingbird. I first read that book in my teens, and have
since read it more than a dozen times. Usually when I need to be inspired. To
me, To Kill a Mockingbird is
everything a book should be - literary, mystery, and suspense. It’s all there.

I love reading, I am an artist at heart and sometimes in practice. Most of my reading focus on themes that help me understand the world, social problems, science. So in a way, I would be sort of an "accidental reader" in terms of cops, detective or mystery stories. David Swinson's books have brought me to experience the thrill of not being able to stop reading and wanting more and more, and at the same time having the anguish of being near the end of the story asking myself what I will do when it finally ends. The mental monolog the protagonist carries through the book is in itself a fantastic exercise in human psychology.My highest praise for David Swinson's work. I Cannot wait for his next book. M.M.

Lots of ways to pre-order Res Mall

Worst Enemies, Book 1 of the Penns River series

Click the cover to buy

Grind Joint, Book 2 of the Penns River series

Click the cover to buy

Forte 4: A Dangerous Lesson Available Now! Click the image below to purchase.

Chicago Private Investigator Nick Forte’s official task is to find out what he can about Jennifer Vandenbusch’s new suitor, who fails to measure up in the eyes of the family matriarch, Jennifer’s grandmother. This seems par for the course for Forte, as his personal life has been leading him through a series of men who treat women badly, though none nearly as badly as the Thursday Night Slasher. Forte lives on the fringes of the investigation run by his old friend Sonny Ng until elements of Forte’s case and life dovetail with the Slasher investigation, leading to Forte discovering more about the crimes—and himself—than he wanted to know.

The Man in the Window

"...we see him getting rougher, tougher and darker book by book. There are multiple twists in the end, two cool sidekicks, good action scenes and some pretty nifty Chanderlisms in this book, adding up to a perfect PI read"--Sons of Spade blog

The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of (Nick Forte 2)

It's a kind of authorial magic that The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of works as a tribute and as a story, and that neither aspect interferes in the least with the other… I can imagine this book finding its way into a class on writing crime fiction as an example of how to pay tribute to one's predecessors while at the same time writing a story that can stand on its own. It's an impressive accomplishment.--- Peter Rozovsky, Detectives Beyond Borders, December 18, 2014

About Me

Two of my Nick Forte Private investigator novels (A SMALL SACRIFICE and THE MAN IN THE WINDOW) received nominations for Shamus Awards. I also write a series of police procedurals set in the economically depressed town of Penns River PA, published by Down & Out Books. A non-fiction essay, “Chandler’s Heroes,” appeared in Spinetingler Magazine online in October of 2013.
I live in Laurel MD with The Beloved Spouse.